Why must artists be poor? | Hadi Eldebek

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The arts bring meaning to our lives and spirit to our culture -- so why do we expect artists to struggle to make a living? Hadi Eldebek is working to create a society where artists are valued through an online platform that matches artists with grants and funding opportunities -- so they can focus on their craft instead of their side hustle.

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Because they take a risk and create something no one has asked for initially, hoping that when it is seen, someone will pay for it. I like art a lot, and it is important, but also simply hard to make a living out of. Normal business are succesful because they do the opposite. They usually create or sell stuff they know a lot of people want.

jaccomusic
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The last guy that got rejected from art school started World War II.

LuxiBelle
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Art is creativity. Like one famous scientist said one day: “Creativity is intelligence having fun.” How boring and depressing would be to live in a world that the only things that matter are just the basic things. Let’s just all live through the veggies, fruit and water because chocolate, ice cream and wine are so unnecessary! 😌

dsstudio
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Because supply is high and demand is low

wunder
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Soo, he left the music career to create a financial platform... :)

nevarran
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I think we need a new industry related to the arts, not JUST funding- like a marketing company for artists; agents that find the right clientele for the right artists and connect them with their audience along with the funding that will enable them to produce for their crowd.
Unfortunately, the mindset of many artists (especially musicians) is that if they utilize outside help to sell their work, or if they start creating things specific to what people like, they've "sold out". The starving artist phenomenon is not just an economic one, it has become cultural. Art is passion and money is power, and a lot of people see those 2 things as conflicting motivators. They don't have to be!

RebeccahKahn
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*I must say that, while being a full-time artist helps you excel in technical aspects of your art: physically drawing, playing an instrument, working efficiently, etc., I subscribe to the notion that actual creativity benefits greatly from someone being a part-time artist only, so that they have a greater variety of real-life experiences to draw inspiration from.*

*Otherwise you get a fuckton of media about the day-to-day struggles of being a Struggles that nobody knows except for people who've seen all of the rest of the media about the exact same thing.*

TheRealE.B.
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He didn't really speak on why we must be poor.

KiDncuDi
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Art is one of the MOST important activities a human being can engage in...

k.t.
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Making art is fun. We all want to do it. That's why the field doesn't pay well. Literally everyone wants that job. My second point would be that poor, or recently struggling, artist make good art. Comfortable or rich artists almost never make good art.

corgan
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Art has nothing to do with commerce. There is no "demand" for the "product". The soul is not a commodity.

EileenPCarryEPC
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I use to be a chemical engineering major before switching to art/tech degree. The tech side, luckily, will help me in the future but outside of our art bubble... We are undervalued and because we are undervalued, many people see it as we should be working for next to nothing at our craft. So many artists being harassed because theyre commissions are too expensive (even if its 50 dollars) and so many artists purposefully undervalue their work to get commissions while also going to school and/or having a job because they dont want to go through that hassle or being worried someone will try to rip them off. It shouldnt have to be like that, but it will be so long as artists arent seen as a valuable part of society, despite art being a staple in many aspects of life like music, architecture, games, movies, photography, fashion, writing, theater, etc. These mediums have powerful uses, capable of bring people together. To make them smile. To feel something.
That shouldnt be undervalued.

SmolRageMatti
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Arts is an unorganised sector. Every other industry has a well defined process and make products which have specific use. Art is an endeavour in which the end product is a creative piece which is novel and unique. Ther can never be an industry around it. And if there ever will be an industry it will turn art into a commodity which could hardly be called art anymore.

prabhdeepsingh
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Art in todays society is better suited to be in the entertainment or marketing industry. This is no longer the renaissance age or the enlightenment, right now the world is more materialistic and have no need of expensive art that will end up just as a display with no other use.

geraldsoria
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It's true that in Europe we have more fundings. But it's a lot more difficult to make money legally as an artist. In Spain working as creative freelancer, I must pay 300$ every month to be economically active and 70$ for an administrator, regardless if I make money or not. That's every single month without exception. If I buy a laptop for work that costs 900$, I can not even deduct that cost in a year (must be deducted in two years). BTW, the tax is 45% if you make 60K a year, and don't forget there is also 21% VAT. The paperworks is making everything very difficult to maintain an active professional life, not to mention the hard-to-deduct tax system. There is no special provision for creative freelancers. Sometimes I'd rather Europe didn't give out grants to SOME artists, but just gave tax cuts to ALL artists.

VeryPrivateGallery
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Artists are in many ways similar to entrepreneurs. Their rates of success should be largely similar.

shiverbay
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Arts primary use comes from it being a social touchstone, a shared experience people can use as a foundation of social interaction.
That means art is more valuable the more well known and popular it is. Thus a few artists make ridiculous amounts of money and the rest almost none.

There is also almost no barrier to entry, everyone can try to make art with today's technology. Thus supply of new art to discover is very high and demand low as demand doesn't increase until something becomes popular or fashionable.

Lethoras
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Very interesting talk! Funding is just one of the solution for starving/emerging or working artists. Having a sustainable income without the aid of government or private foundations seem to be a better solution. We surveyed over 400 artists online and found out that more than 60% of artists do not make a living on their art, and more than half of them do not have a website. Marketing and communication training for artists could also help solving this problem like you do for SMEs. In fact, artists in many countries when economically active, are considered SMEs.

veryprivate
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The poor artists are the ones who carry a big ego, who create 'art' and then demand others praise it.
If you create things other people like, they will give you money for it. It's why a lot of creative types are using Patreon or other crowdfunding platforms.

It's your portfolio that matters, not your education. I never went to any kind of art school and I make art for my living. If you get good enough there will be far more demand for your work that you could ever possibly hope to supply. That's the critical mass part of being an artist. You need to put things out there, and you need to put it out frequently enough so that other people pay attention.

Art is subjective, and so is comedy; but imagine if comedians were subsidized! We'd be drowning in knock-knock and fart jokes and actual talented comics would struggle to get noticed because people will simply dismiss the whole comedy scene for being childish. Kinda like what 'modern' art is these days, since a lot of times it's literally garbage; and it's just a bunch of egotistical artists praising each other's own farts while the people looking at it don't find any actual joy in it, they just want to be part of the 'cultured club.'

The ultimate reality of being an artist is that you need to be laser focused on a small target audience if you want to be successful. Every time any art that is produced in any kind of media that tries to cater to the largest and lowest common denominator it ultimately is forgotten, because it is bland and generic; it's a piece of white bread. It might be the best piece of white bread in the world, but it's still plain and boring.

rahn
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The reason there's not more money in the Arts is because people simply aren't willing to pay a lot of money for it. The demand isn't there. It's simply not valued by the common person. When most people are concerned about paying rent and bills, spending money on musical concerts is going to be way low at the bottom of the list. As much as I appreciate the Arts, there's simply way more important things for the government to be spending tax dollars on. I take issue with the speaker associating the word fairness with this issue. The state of the Arts is not unfair at all. It is simply the result of an open and free market economy in the United States. There's nothing unfair about the Arts being low-paying, because the supply is high and the demand is low. That is basic economics.

AxelAlexK